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LISBETH AND GRANTHER 







ASCHENBRODEL 

A CHILD SKETCH 


BY 


/ 


MRS. GEORGE A. PAULL 

\ I 

AUTHOR OF “mother’s BEDTIME TALES,” “ PRINCE DIMPLE ” 
ETC. 




THOMAS WHITTAKER 

2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSE 




Copyright, 1894, 

By Thomas Whittaker. 




ASCHENBRODEL. 


CHAPTER I. 

It was a morning in early spring; one 
of those April mornings when every one 
whose sensibilities are neither dormant nor 
callous feels the jubilant new life of the 
year dancing through the veins, keeping 
time with the symphony of nature. 

It was a day of infinite suggestion, and 
thus far more charming than a summer 
day of full development. The bare brown 
limbs of the trees no longer made sharp 
arabesques against the sky ; there was a 
soft, indefinable purplish haze about them 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


that told the story of awakening life in the 
leaf-buds. In the distance the mountains 
were softened in outline, instead of break- 
ing the sky-line abruptly; and lifting up 
one’s eyes to the hills, one knew that the 
artist brush of Nature had begun to lay the 
ground color on her canvas, and that pres- 
ently every shade of foliage upon her pal- 
ette would be laid on ; not recklessly, but 
with a delicacy, an exquisiteness of con- 
ception and execution that defied imita- 
tion. 

Just beyond the range of human hear- 
ing was the soft prelude of the spring: 
green things whispering to one another as 
they met in the sunlight ; a tender allegro 
in the branches of the trees as the sap 
danced upward and swelled their hearts 
with possibilities of blossom and leaf and 
harvest, and a grand maesto from all of 


ASCHENBRODEL 


3 


Nature’s voices, as they joined in the 
chorus of resurrection joy. 

There was another symphony that came 
within mortal range, and which, though 
prosaic enough, was nevertheless in accord 
with the spring morning: the patter of 
children’s feet as they went on their way 
to school, loitering somewhat as the sun- 
shine of the April morning whispered to 
them to stop and revel in it, instead of 
poring over their lesson-books ; the sound 
of their happy voices and merry bursts of 
laughter, as care-free and joyous as the 
songs of the birds that were darting 
about, making their preparations for nest- 
ing; the distant, discordant music of a 
hand-organ, which had been dragged out 
from its hibernation, wheezing and strug- 
gling through its old tunes, a little more 
asthmatic, perhaps, because of added age ; 


4 


ASCHENBRODEL 


the sharp, clear tinkle of the bells upon 
the ragman’s cart, and the dismal toot of 
a fish-horn. Who has not in some fashion 
so unconsciously associated these sounds 
with a morning in early spring, that any 
one of them may suddenly flash upon the 
mind’s retina — the picture of blue skies, 
and air flooded with the subtle fragrance 
of the breath of the baby spring? 

An old refuse-wagon jogged slowly up 
the street, half laden with its unsavory 
burden, drawn wearily and perfunctorily 
by a tired animal whose architectural 
proportions were but scantily hidden by a 
moth-eaten hide stretched tightly over it. 
He had no pretensions to flesh, and in 
sooth, as one watched his head sway sor- 
rowfully with the labor it cost him to carry 
what little he had, it would scarcely have 
been a kindness to wish him more. 


ASCHENBRODEL 


5 


So closely are the spiritual and sanitary 
conditions interwoven in this life, where 
body and soul must live together in inter- 
dependence, that the old refuse-wagon, 
blot as it might seem upon the beauty of 
the morning, had its part in the general 
cosmogony. 

The driver was a study in gray. His 
long boots were so liberally streaked with 
dust and ashes that it seemed an open 
question whether they had not originally 
been gray, with deeper shadings of black 
here and there. His clothes were of that 
indescribable mellowness of tint that passes 
under the generic term of dirty, to the 
careless observer. At the same time, to 
one with an artistic eye there was some- 
thing harmonious and pleasing in the 
shaded neutrality of the garments, which 
could only have reached their present con- 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


dition by long and very hard wear, by 
close and tenacious contact with innumer- 
able ash-barrels, by exposure to the sun 
and storm alike, and possibly by an insen- 
sible lending of their fiber to the soiled 
clod of humanity they covered. The 
slouch-hat which covered his retreating 
forehead and matted hair had yielded 
itself hopelessly to its condition in life, as 
being a slight intervention between the 
shock of gray hair and the swill- cans which 
emerged into light from shaded areas, 
borne upon the flat, ill-formed head. A 
phrenologist would have discovered that 
the organs of spirituality, morality, relig- 
ion, refinement, and sympathy were to- 
tally lacking; but the swill-cans and ash- 
barrels were innocent of complicity in this, 
for, turning back the pages of his life 
for generation after generation, they had 


ASCHENBRODEL 


7 


always been lacking, and one could scarce- 
ly blame him for being merely an ill-con- 
ditioned brute, when he had been shackled 
into that miserable estate by the fetters of 
heredity. 

The most that a sanguine lover of man- 
kind could hope would be that he might 
possibly be capable of education as far as 
appreciation of the simplest moralities of 
life. Every inch of his body, as he sat 
slouched forward upon the wagon-seat, 
told of a sluggish, hard, coarse-grained or- 
ganization. Not an outline from his head 
to his feet spoke of the man, but only of the 
brute. Yet what an injustice to liken the 
most debased of our humankind to brutes, 
since they, not having the perilous possibil- 
ity of choice between good and evil in their 
power, are perfect brutes, each having risen 
to the full measure of brutish capability. 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


Yet in one sense this man might be reck- 
oned a success. Nay, more. To a per- 
son who cherishes one of those exquisite- 
ly frail, marvelously tenacious conceptions 
called theories, he might even be a de- 
light, since he lent a robustness, a strong 
vertebral support, to the theory that a 
man’s employment, the groove in which 
his thoughts must run for the greatest part 
of his time, will exert an influence upon 
his character, and even mold his linea- 
ments. 

Studying that sullen, brutal, low-browed 
face, with dim eyes, that were like dusty 
windows, through which no glimmer of a 
soul could shine, you might readily believe 
that the subtle beauty, the indescribable 
suggestiveness of that glorious April morn- 
ing, dew-washed, fresh from the hand of 
God, meant to him nothing but an oppor- 


ASCHENBRODEL 


9 


tunity to gather together in an ill-savored 
mess all the refuse and garbage that he 
could find. 

Many a man has followed this calling, 
and has yet been a clean, white-souled 
man, who could let himself be insensibly 
influenced rather by the cleanliness he left 
behind him than by the refuse he carried 
away ; but looking into Gustave Lieb- 
mann’s face, you knew that it was the 
refuse which made his atmosphere, and 
which to him was the sole end and aim of 
existence. 

Yet it is not for the sake of the sorrow- 
ful animal nodding his weary way up the 
street, nor for his master’s sake, that I have 
brought this April morning to focus upon 
the creaky old wagon; it is because that 
beside the driver sat a little child, whose 
heart throbbed responsively, though vague- 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


ly, in sympathy with the throbbings of 
nature’s heart, and to whom all uncon- 
sciously that morning was bringing some- 
thing that was new and wonderful and 
marvelously sweet. 

Such a very little child she was, al- 
though six times the blossom storms of 
May had swept the bridal veils from the 
fruit-trees since the fetters of life had 
been bound upon her. The tiny shrunken 
limbs might have belonged to a mere 
baby, and there was a pitiful curve in the 
little back that told of her lost birthright, 
the robbery by some one of the inalien- 
able heritage of health and strength that 
should have been born with her. 

But the face was not the face of a baby. 
There was no rounded contour, with dim- 
ples that come and go in the very wanton- 
ness of soft curves, the wild-rose tint of 


ASCHENBRODEL 


babyhood, nor the fascinatingly indeter- 
minate features that have not yet fairly 
emerged into decision from the rounded 
face. It was that most pitiful of all sights 
— the face of a little child grown old 
through suffering, that looked out through 
the frame of the faded blue hood. A 
wistful, tender little face withal, that 
might have been very fair to look upon 
if health had kissed the pale cheeks into 
roundness and rosiness, and happiness had 
curved the little drooping mouth into a 
smile. The brown eyes were as bright 
as if the child’s luminous soul shone out 
through them, as radiant as when it first 
found a lodging in the frail casket of clay, 
and the little wave of hair that dropped 
across her forehead and fell over her shoul- 
ders in a carelessly twisted braid was so 
fair that it looked in the sun like spun 


2 


ASCHENBRODEL 


silver. A faded cloak of blue was gath- 
ered about her, and the little skirt of dull 
red made the only spot of vivid color about 
the child. 

But she was happy just now. A ride 
with Granther was a rare treat, and one 
not to be held in light esteem ; and it was 
because she was so overwhelmingly de- 
lighted that she shrank into a speechless, 
immovable little figure, half fearing all the 
time that by some outburst of speech or 
sudden gesture she might recall herself to 
old Gustave’s thoughts, and he might end 
this revel by taking her home before he 
had finished his rounds. 

That Granther did not like her, that she 
lived in an atmosphere of reproach for hav- 
ing presumed to be at all, she knew in her 
childish, not wholly comprehended way ; 
and as children accustom themselves to 


ASCHENBRODEL 


13 


whatever falls to their lot, she had borne 
the harshness, the intolerance, with the 
same uncomplaining patience with which 
she had borne the touch of pain which 
rested so heavily upon the wasted little 
figure. Where a man, with fully devel- 
oped reasoning faculties, might have cursed 
God and died, in the bitterness of a lot so 
set about with cruel limitations and blasted 
with disease, this little child had taken all 
as it came, without a question or thought 
that it might be different. 

Even when, in her rare rides, she had 
seen other children frolicking in the very 
exuberance of their overflowing life, or 
rushing tumultuously upon their mothers 
for caresses of which she in her little life 
had never known one, she did not wonder 
why one should have everything, while 
from another everything should be with- 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


held. It was all right, and only to be ex- 
pected. Those were other children, and 
she was herself. A crude philosophy, 
truly, but one which kept her submissive 
and even happy in the negative way of 
not being more unhappy than she had to 
be when her back hurt her more than 
usual, or a push or blow brought her gen- 
eral misery to a sharper focus for a time. 

This child represented to old Gustave 
the one great wrong of his life, which had 
stung him out of stolidity into the fury 
of an enraged beast, and had made a scar 
which could not cicatrize and be forgotten 
while this little face looked at him. 


CHAPTER IL 


The standard of ethics was not very 
high in the little row of tumble-down 
shanties called, in a curious commingling 
of truth and fancifulness, Sodom, but it 
did reach up, by some instinct rather than 
through any teaching, to a certain height 
of morality, 

Gustave and his wife had one child, a 
daughter, who in her early girlhood had a 
certain immature comeliness that was not 
altogether without a charm in the eyes of 
the Sodomites. If Gustave knew what it 
was to feel so generous an emotion as a 
liking for any creature under the sun, he 
cherished this feeling for his daughter. 

15 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


For his “ woman ” he had none but the 
feeling that she shared with his lean old 
horses, which one after another succumbed 
after a few months of drudgery. She was 
necessary. He could not do without her, 
and she ranked higher than the beasts in 
that she wore better, and after twenty- five 
years of rough usage was still able to bear 
his blows and do his work. 

We do the lower orders of our fellow- 
beings an injustice, sometimes, when we 
think that they cannot share any of our 
emotions. When the news spread along 
the row of shanties that Liebmann’s girl 
had run off with an organ-grinder,” not 
the most highly cultured among us, my 
sisters, could have been aroused to a 
greater enthusiasm of interest, nor gos- 
siped about the matter with more un- 
charitableness and bitter judgment, than 


ASCHENBR.ODEL 


17 


did these unlettered, uncultured women of 
Sodom. 

To know how old Gustave would take 
it ” was the focalization of interest; and to 
do him justice, he did not disappoint his 
neighbors in their desire for a little excite- 
ment. He vented his passion in a pro- 
longed spree that became a date in the 
neighborhood from which to reckon events, 
even in this place where the calendar was 
apt to be reckoned by crimes of greater 
or less blackness. He killed his horse, and 
would have doubtless killed his wife, had 
she not fled until her man was right 
again.” 

When, some months later, the hapless 
girl, deserted, betrayed, outcast, knowing 
nothing of God’s tenderness, and, alas! 
too much of man’s judgment, crept home 
in the blackness of her despair, as a 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


wounded animal drags itself toward its 
covert to die, with a helpless, wailing in- 
fant in her arms, old Gustave lifted his 
arm, and, with a curse, smote her so cruel 
a blow that she reeled out again into the 
night, the voice of the storm drowning her 
sobbing cry for help, and the blow rending 
the last hope she had hugged to her heart 
of finding a shelter upon earth. 

Before the snow had covered her com- 
pletely as she lay prostrate beside the 
door, a neighbor found her and carried her 
home to her own house, showing perhaps 
a larger charity than one would expect to 
find in one unskilled in Christian ethics, 
since, although she cared for the sinner, 
she in no wise condoned the sin. 

Up to the last hour of the life that 
ebbed away at dawn she talked with bit- 
ter virulence of the disgrace the girl had 


ASCHENBRODEL 


9 


brought upon her family, but it fell upon 
the dull ears like the beating of the storm 
against the window. It could not enter 
and chill into greater desolation the broken 
heart. 

When she was buried old Gustave paid 
for her funeral expenses, with a kind of 
fierce pride that made him more willing to 
do this for the daughter he had disowned 
and turned out to die than to let her be 
buried as a pauper, and the feeble baby 
was taken into his house. How it had 
lived at all was one of those marvels of the 
possibilities of vitality that defy explana- 
tion. Surely no little life ever came into 
the world under more sorrowful conditions. 
The misery of the girl-mother, that had 
grown in intensity and force as the months 
went by and she saw no escape from the 
issue that she shrank from in an agony 


20 


ASCHENBRODEL 


of shame and fear, had inwrought itself 
into the very tissue of the child’s being. 
Every hygienic condition was unfavorable. 
Malnutrition clutched the baby frame in a 
vise-like grasp and twisted it out of shape. 
Blows that one would have thought might 
have killed a woman fell upon the tender 
baby flesh until the brutal hand of the 
grandfather had been legally stayed, and 
he had been bound over to keep the peace 
through the intervention of a neighbor 
more kindly disposed than the rest. 

It would have been but natural if the 
grandmother had felt more tenderly to- 
ward the child, and that a remnant of the 
natural affection she must have had for the 
daughter who once lay upon her breast 
would have aroused at least a little kindly 
feeling toward it ; but she had grown too 
dull to feel any quickening of latent love 


ASCHENBRODEL 


21 


when the helpless little creature was laid 
in her arms, and she only disliked it pas- 
sively, because it “ makes my man ugly.” 

And yet the child lived, fighting against 
the death which seemed to overshadow it 
continually with a patient endurance that 
at least held its own if it gained nothing. 
But no patience, no sweet submissiveness, 
no bravely borne burden of suffering could 
soften the heart of old Gustave toward the 
little Lisbeth. She kept before him the 
memory of his daughter’s deed, and the 
tempest of wrath that had made him a 
creature mad and bereft of reason for a 
time, and which had given his neighbors a 
chance to fling taunts at him for a shame 
which had never yet stepped across their 
thresholds. 

And this innocent child, touched with 
the divine nature of the Child Christ, 


22 


ASCHENBRODEL 


which enfolds us all when we enter this 
world, but is torn from most of us when 
we leave our childhood behind us, was the 
seal set upon shame, suffering, and sin. 
Alas, the pity of it all! 


CHAPTER III. 


But to-day Lisbeth was happy. She 
basked in the sun, she delighted in the 
distant strains of a hand- organ, and she 
watched with a quiet interest the houses 
at which they stopped for ashes. There 
were modifications of her happiness for a 
few minutes sometimes, when the ashes 
were being emptied into the depths behind 
her, and the playful breezes wafted them 
about her in a cloud that was suffocating, 
and covered her with a gray dust that set- 
tled upon the folds of her little cloak, and 
made her cough and sneeze when she tried 
to brush it off. But she had a store of 
23 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


philosophy, this little Lisbeth, which stood 
her in good stead. The ashes belonged to 
the rides, and if she would have one she 
must not complain of the other; so she 
gave no sign of discomfort. 

At last they drove around to the rear 
of a house, where the windows were open, 
and Lisbeth could see a white-capped 
housemaid whisking her duster about 
through a parted drapery of lace which 
shut out much that her eager eyes would 
have liked to see. Then came a ripple of 
music. Some one had run swift fingers 
over the keys of a piano, and Lisbeth held 
her breath in delight. Then a voice arose, 
first in a preliminary and bewilderingly 
sweet roulade of notes, that might have 
been the spirit of the spring taking to it- 
self a human voice, and then after this brief 
exercise beginning a joyful song. Sud- 


ASCHENBRODEL 


25 


denly it ceased, and a lady came to the 
window and glanced out. She was wait- 
ing for old Gustave to come up from the 
open cellar- way, and her eyes did not at 
first note the "patient little figure, with its 
rapt face, looking at her admiringly. 

There was some caution concerning care 
in the removal of the ashes that she wished 
to give him, but as Gustave toppled the 
barrel over into the wagon, and the suffo- 
cating cloud of ashes enveloped the child, 
she forgot everything else, and called 
hastily : 

“ Take that child down, quick ! She 
will be smothered.” 

“ She no hurt,” said Gustave compos- 
edly, stepping back out of the way him- 
self, and waiting for the ashes to settle; 
but in an instant the back door opened, and 
the astonished child was lifted down in the 


26 


ASCHENBRODEL 


lady’s arms, and carried out of the cloud 
into a clearer atmosphere. 

“You poor little mite, I should think 
those ashes would choke you and stand- 
ing the child upon her feet, she shook out 
the little cloak, and with her handkerchief 
wiped the dust- stained face. 

Something in the tiny, misshapen fig- 
ure, the pallid face, the lack of rounded 
contour, tightened her heart-strings. 

“ Would you like to come in and see 
me a little while until your grandfather is 
ready to go?’’ she asked gently. 

But Lisbeth did not answer; she was 
staring in open-eyed and incredulous won- 
der at the face leaning over her. 

“Why don’t you speak up?’’ growled 
old Gustave; and the shrinking of the 
childish form, as the harsh voice fell upon 
her ears, told its own sad story to the heart 


ASCHENBRODEL 


27 


whose doors were always flung wide open 
at the touch of little hands. 

“ I am sure she would like to stay. 
Suppose you leave her till you come down 
the street again. You will be back in an 
hour.” 

Gustave gave a sullen grunt of assent. 
It went sorely against his grain to give the 
child this pleasure, but business was busi- 
ness, and he had often received some extra 
gratuity here at holiday season. He could 
see that it should never happen again, 
however, and so he drove away, leaving 
Lisbeth standing beside the lady, wonder- 
ing in her bewildered little brain if she 
could be dreaming. 

Sometimes she had dreamed beautiful 
things, and once she had thought that 
some one was holding her as she had seen 
mothers, even in Sodom, hold their chil- 


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ASCHENBRODEL 


dren. She was an imaginative child. The 
calm, phlegmatic temperament of her 
mother’s race had not entered into her 
composition, but whatever the twisted 
strands of heredity had let down within 
her grasp of delight in beauty, in music, 
and love had come to her from generations 
of her ancestors beneath Italy’s sunny 
skies. 

For a brief space after the old wagon 
had rumbled creakily and complainingly 
out of the gate the two stood there, bathed 
in the glory of that quivering sunshine: 
the little shrunken figure, in mute con- 
tent, beside the lady, who looked down 
upon her with a great wave of loving pity 
sweeping over her. 

The wistful look in those brown eyes 
had made for little Lisbeth a royal high- 
way into her heart. Child- eyes of that 


ASCHENBRODEL 


29 


same hue had once looked into her own 
with that expression of patient endurance, 
of innocent appeal ; and for the sake of 
that memory, which abode with her con- 
tinually and was more real to her than the 
material things in her life, which could be 
touched and handled, every little child 
became precious to her. The lowliest ser- 
vice that she could render to one of these 
little ones was a sacred and rarely sweet 
ministry, doubly sacred since it was not 
only rendered for the sake of the Holy 
Child, but for the sake of the one who had 
interpreted to her the holiness, the divine 
passion of motherhood, and who in awak- 
ening that passion had stirred its depths so 
that it should never slumber again. 

It was almost ten years now since she 
had dropped tears and kisses upon those 
closed eyes, and yet it might have been 


30 


ASCHENBRODEL 


but yesterday that the fair curls had been 
pillowed upon her bosom, and she had 
watched death’s angel kiss the tired baby 
face into peace. 

Since then the motherliness in her nat- 
ure, which had been concentrated upon 
the one little delicate child, had turned 
toward all child-nature, and no child-eyes 
ever looked into her own without meeting 
warm sympathy in their joys and sorrows 
alike; and if, as it sometimes chanced, a 
little one came in her way who stood in 
the shadow of neglect or pain, her longing 
to bring a ray of sunshine into that little 
life was almost passionate in its intensity. 
Her own child, cradled in the arms of the 
Christ, was blessed beyond all human con- 
ception; all that was left to her was to 
minister to other little ones in the name of 
her own motherhood, and for the sake of 


ASCHENBRODEL 


31 


the sweet blossom of childhood that had 
faded in her clasp. 

Therefore it was no mere surface im- 
pulse of kindliness which prompted her to 
detain this sad-faced little child, that she 
might perhaps bring a light into those 
wistful eyes, or coax a smile to the lips 
that, with their patient little droop, looked 
as if they were wholly unaccustomed to 
joy. Not one whit happier was bewil- 
dered little Lisbeth than was this new 
friend who stooped and gathered her in 
strong and loving arms, saying brightly : 

“ And now we will have a nice time to- 
gether, will we not?” 

It was so light a weight, that tiny body, 
but barely sufficient to clasp the brave, 
sweet soul, and Lisbeth quivered with de- 
light as for the first time in her life she 
felt herself in an embrace. Upstairs the 


32 


ASCHENBRODEL 


lady went with her burden to her own 
room, the housemaid whom they passed 
upon the stairs looking in no wise sur- 
prised, for all who lived in that house 
knew that childhood was the open sesame 
to the heart of the mistress. 

She sat down in a low chair, and unfast- 
ening the child’s hood, dropped it upon 
the floor beside her, and threw off the 
faded cloak. The hair of spun silver quiv- 
ered into a halo about the little head for a 
moment, through a sudden mist of tears, 
but the voice did not falter that talked 
cheerily to the child, who even yet was 
too shy to speak. The little red frock 
was strained tightly across the crooked 
back, and with gentle touch the lady loos- 
ened it, and then nestled the child up to her 
so closely that the fair head lay upon her 
shoulder. A sudden thought came to her. 


ASCHENBRODEL 


33 


“What shall we do?” she asked. 
“ Would you like to hear a story? ” 

Lisbeth gave a little bird-like note of 
assent. It was scarcely a word, more like 
a shattered bit of a syllable, but it was 
enough; and gently swaying to and fro, 
the lady told her the old nursery tale of 
Cinderella, watching the brown eyes widen 
and sparkle, and the faint glow of color 
come in the pale cheeks. 

“ And now we shall play that you are 
a little Aschenbrodel,” she concluded, tak- 
ing the German rendering of the name, in 
a passing fancy. “ See, we shall have a 
little feast together, you and I, and I have 
a pretty frock that will make you like a 
little princess, and we will play that when 
your grandfather comes back with the 
wagon that the hour of twelve has struck.” 
Lisbeth laughed aloud. It was the first 


34 


ASCHENBRODEL 


laugh of her sad life, but she was too full 
of the quaint fancy to heed anything else 
just then. 

Across the work-basket that stood in a 
corner of the room was a little pink-and- 
white flannel wrapper, finished about the 
neck and sleeves with soft lace and dainty 
stitching, and fastened with ribbon bows. 
It had just been completed, and was to 
have been sent to the little cot in the chil- 
dren’s ward in the hospital, for whose little 
occupant Mrs. Drayton cared in every way 
that she might. But she could make an- 
other. Just now she wanted but this one 
thing to fill this veritable little Aschenbro- 
del’s cup to overflowing with happiness ; 
so, slipping off the old red frock, she put in 
its place the dainty garment, and fastened 
its soft, loose folds about the little figure. 
Then, rising, she put the child gently in a 




ASCHENBRODEL 


35 


chair, and unfastening the fair hair, brushed 
it out until it fell in a stream of pale glory 
about the twisted shoulders, and drew it 
back from the little shining face with a 
knot of pink ribbon. Then she smiled 
down into Lisbeth’s face. 

“ Now, little princess, you shall see 
yourself,” she said; and lifting her again 
in her arms, she carried her into another 
room, and put her down before a long 
mirror, into which the child gazed, half 
frightened, wholly bewildered. 

Who was this before her? This little 
figure with the soft folds of pink and white 
falling to the floor so loosely that they hid 
the shrunken limbs, the misshapen form ; 
with a glory of pale gold falling about the 
happy face, the brown eyes looking won- 
deringly back at the little Aschenbrodel, 
whom a fairy’s wand had turned into a 


36 


ASCHENBRODEL 


princess. She hardly understood that it 
was a mirror, and turned aside shyly. 

“ See, dear, you must not be afraid. It 
is yourself that you are looking at; ” and 
lifting the little one in her arms, and draw- 
ing the fair head with its soft, floating hair 
again upon her shoulder, she stood before 
the mirror, and coaxed the shy child to 
look up. 

The child’s eyes strayed to a large pict- 
ure that hung upon the wall near the 
mirror. 

Please tell me about that,” said Lis- 
beth shyly ; and standing before the pict- 
ure, unwearied by the weight of the light 
form, Mrs. Drayton told the child as sim- 
ply as she could that the angel was taking 
the little one to heaven, where it would 
be forever free from all pain, and tears, 
and disappointment forever. 


ASCHEMBRODEL 


37 


'‘What is heaven?” asked Lisbeth. 

Ah, what is heaven? Who shall an- 
swer, or put within the grasp of human 
conception the infinite effulgence of glory 
of that City of which the Lamb is the 
light thereof? Yet in simple fashion, with 
such similes as the child could grasp, the 
question was answered. 

“And are you an angel?” asked Lis- 
beth. 

“ No, my child, no,” was the hasty an- 
swer. “ I am no angel.” 

“ But this is like heaven, for see my 
beautiful dress,” said the child, gathering 
up the soft folds in one tiny hand, and 
holding it up. “ And it is so beautiful 
here, and I heard you singing, and I could 
never, never cry, if my back should be oh, 
so bad. If I should go to heaven, could 
Granther take me back?” 


38 


ASCHENBRODEL 


“ No, darling, you shall stay there for- 
ever and ever,” was the answer. “ And 
this dress will soil, little Aschenbrodel, and 
you will have to put it off, but the robes 
are always spotless there. I cannot tell 
you quite how beautiful it is there, my 
little one, but I can tell you this, that there 
is no place in all the wide world as beauti- 
ful, nor anywhere is there as kind a friend 
as the messenger that comes to take us 
there.” 

A hot tear splashed on the child’s face, 
and the brown eyes looked up in startled 
sadness. 

Do not mind, dear,” and a kiss com- 
forted the quivering lips. “ We will not 
be sad. You shall be a gay little princess 
till the clock strikes twelve, and we hear 
the grandfather’s cart coming back down 
the street; and yet you shall be happier 


ASCHEhtBRODEL 


39 


than Aschenbrodel was, for you need not 
leave your little frock behind you, but 
wear it home, and be happy in it. Now 
we will have a little feast, and the next 
time your grandfather brings you to see 
me we will have more stories and feasts.” 

The simple little lunch was but scarce- 
ly finished when the creaky old wagon 
groaned itself through the gate, and the 
panting horse came to a standstill before 
the kitchen door, looking as if the power 
of inertia would be strong enough to resist 
any propulsory suggestions that might be 
offered by the stocky whip which Gustave 
always carried. 

Mrs. Drayton expected to see the child 
plead to stay, but Lisbeth meekly tied on 
the old hood, and put the faded blue cloak 
over her pretty wrapper. 

I want you to bring this little girl 


40 


ASCHENBRODEL 


again, Gustave,” said Mrs. Drayton, as she 
put the child up on the seat, and smiled 
good-by into the luminous brown eyes. 

Once a week at least you must leave her 
here for a little while.” 

Gustave grunted, a non-committal grunt 
that might be either assent or refusal, as 
any one chose to read it, and Mrs. Dray- 
ton, interpreting it as assent, watched the 
old wagon go away, and smiled at the 
fancy that the little Aschenbrodel, sitting 
in mute and blissful content upon the old 
ash-cart, should indeed have times of be- 
ing a little princess, and entering an en- 
chanted land of love and tenderness. 

When the last glimpse of the little figure 
had disappeared, she turned and went up 
to her room, and knelt before the picture 
of a beautiful baby face, crowned with a 
halo of palest gold, as fair as the hair that 


ASCHENBRODEL 


41 


had but just now rested against her heart, 
but with a little more of heaven’s glitter 
touching it into glory. Tender brown 
eyes, with a patient, wondering expression, 
looked into her own, as they had looked 
so often before, and the lips were parted, 
as if a little fluttering cry for mother was 
to escape them again. 

She leaned forward and laid her cheek 
against the lifeless canvas, and in her heart 
there swelled the grateful prayer: 

I thank Thee, O my God. I thank 
Thee that Thou didst take her into ten- 
derer keeping than mine, and that, all un- 
worthy as I am. Thou dost let me minister 
to another little child for her sake.” 

If you had asked her the greatest bless- 
ing for which she gave thanks day by 
day, and if she had from her very heart- 
depths responded to you, the mother-love. 


42 


ASCHENBRODEL 


which could renounce unselfishly rather 
than hold where she could not save from 
an intolerable thralldom of weariness and 
pain, would have told you that day and 
night she thanked God that her child 
walked with Him in the Heavenly Gar- 
dens; and yet tears, hot and swift, were 
too often the lenses through which this 
blessing glittered. 

But this glad April morning had brought 
a brief healing to her sore heart, for the 
little wasted hands she had clasped in her 
own like fluttering birds had brought com- 
fort in their touch, and in making little 
Aschenbrodel happy she had made for 
herself a little season of joy. 


CHAPTER IV. 


It is the unexpected that always hap- 
pens. Three or four times during the 
following week Mrs. Drayton laid aside 
trifles that she thought would please shy 
little Aschenbrodel when she should come 
again, and she looked forward to seeing 
her with genuine eagerness, determining 
to find out more about the child’s home- 
life, and see whether perhaps something 
might not be done to make her more com- 
fortable and give her better care than she 
seemed to receive. But wEen the day 
came that brought surly old Gustave along 
on his route, she watched for him all the 


43 


44 


ASCHENBRODEL 


morning in vain, and having an engage- 
ment in the afternoon, went out, leaving 
word that if the child came she was to 
wait for her return. 

The old wagon had nothing of sweet- 
ness or charm about it that day when at 
last it came, drawn by another lean beast, 
who had taken the place of the poor 
drudge who had laid his weary bones 
down for the last time in the interval. 

Gustave had refused to bring the child, 
and had threatened her angrily when she 
had so far forgotten her usual submissive- 
ness as to plead with tears that she might 
be taken. 

The brutal word he called her did not 
stain the pure child-soul, for she under- 
stood it not; but she did understand that 
she could not again be a happy little prin- 
cess — she must sit among her ashes, with 


ASCHENBRODEL 


45 


only the remembrance of that bright hour 
to hold to her heart. 

When Mrs. Drayton came home and 
learned that Gustave had not brought the 
child, remembering the surly face, she 
determined to go and see the little one for 
herself, and not let her drift away again 
out of her knowledge. 

The following day a telegram called 
her away from home, and she did not re- 
turn for over a week, the Saturday morn- 
ing preceding Easter Day. 

That day was one which came to her 
laden with memories of exultant anguish. 
It was the anniversary of the day upon 
which she had seen her child triumphantly 
enter upon the glory of heaven, and upon 
which her heart had been rent asunder 
with the agony of parting. For hours the 
husband and wife sat alone together with 


46 ASCHENBRODEL 

closed doors in the room from which the 
messenger of death had borne the beloved 
child, and no hand dare unveil the sacred- 
ness of such communion with grief. 

At five o’clock Mrs. Drayton came down 
the stairs, dressed in white, her arms laden 
with flowers, and their perfume making an 
atmosphere of fragrance about her. A 
carriage waited at the door to take her to 
the hospital, where she went every year at 
this hour, and going into the children’s 
ward, went from cot to cot, filling wasted 
little hands with rare bloom, and then sing- 
ing glad Easter songs to them until the 
bedtime hour. 

She had reached the foot of the steps, 
when a woman with a shawl thrown over 
her head came up, and half hesitated, as 
if she meant to speak to her, and then 
turned away. 


ASCHENBRODEL 


47 


“ What is it ? Did you wish to speak 
to me?” asked Mrs. Drayton. 

“Well, I did, ma’am, but it don’t make 
no difference, as long as you’re going 
somewhere. Another time will likely do 
as well. It was only about little Lisbeth. 
Are you the lady that took her into the 
house, and told her stories and sang to 
her?” 

“Yes. What of her?” was the hasty 
question. 

“ Well, she had a bad hurt getting 
knocked down by the ash-wagon, and I 
guess she ain’t got no chance to be better. 
She keeps crying for you, and her folks 
said they wouldn’t tell you, so I thought 
— I thought — ” and she hesitated, shame- 
facedly. “ Well, I know she ain’t nothing 
but a crooked little young one, but I’m 
the kind that can’t bear to see no one die 


48 


ASCHENBRODEL 


without getting their last wish, and her 
mother died in my house, so I thought I 
would come and tell you, for maybe you 
would come if you knew.” 

Of course I will go. I will go at once. 
Come into the carriage and tell the driver 
where to go.” 

And the woman marveled greatly as she 
obeyed. A child, understand you, was 
but the least of all worthless possessions 
among the dwellers in Sodom. If a mother 
had a lurking inclination to fondness, she 
repressed it, as showing her folly, and poor 
little Lisbeth, with her ailing, weak, crooked 
body, had been despised, as not having 
even the elements of future value which 
to a certain extent made other children 
worth caring for. 

Polly Matthews, who had rather mar- 
veled at her own weakness in gratifying 


ASCHENBRODEL 


49 


the desire of such an insignificant little 
creature, could in no wise enter into the 
eagerness with which this lady made haste 
to go to the little Lisbeth. 

It was not a long journey with the swift- 
footed horses, and within fifteen minutes 
the carriage stopped before the miserable 
shanty, and Mrs. Drayton knocked at the 
door. She shuddered as she looked about 
her, to think of the atmosphere in which 
this little child had lived, growing like a 
lily from a bed of mire, pure only because 
it reaches up toward heaven’s sunlight to 
blossom, instead of putting forth its leaves 
among the creatures that crawl in the slimy 
mud. 

Come,” said old Gustave ; and she 
opened the door, and stood upon the 
threshold. The old couple were eating 
their evening meal, and they looked up. 


50 ASCHENBRODEL 

open-mouthed, at the vision in the door- 
way. 

“ I have come to see Lisbeth,” she said. 
“ Where is she? ” 

“ She upstairs,” answered the woman, 
without offering to rise from her seat to 
show the way, not from deliberate inten- 
tion of uncivility, but because she knew 
no better. You do no good. The 
doctor say she die quick. Good ting, 
dat.” 

Up the narrow stairs Mrs. Drayton went, 
clasping her flowers unconsciously in her 
hands. Low moans guided her into the 
little room where the child lay alone, her 
eyes closed, her face drawn with pain, and 
her little hands clutching a pink ribbon 
bow. 

Just then, through the dusty window 
under the eaves the western blaze of dy- 


ASCHENBRODEL 


51 


ing glory made its way, and lighted up the 
dull corner of the dirty room. 

Little Aschenbrodel,” said the tender 
voice, “ I have come to you.” The brown 
eyes opened, and looked with a bewildered 
gaze of incredulous wonder upon the white- 
robed, fragrant figure beside the bed. 

“ It is the angel,” she said feebly. 

‘‘No, dear child,” and Mrs. Drayton 
knelt beside the child, and leaned over 
her, that she might see her face. “ It is 
not the angel just yet, but I have come to 
stay with you till he comes.” 

That it would not be long she could not 
doubt. 

The brown eyes lighted up, and the 
little arms were stretched out appealingly. 

“Shall I hold you?” 

“ Yes — like — like the day I was a prin- 


cess. 


52 


ASCHENBRODEL 


The strong, loving arms gathered her up 
from the miserable cot, and the waning 
glory of sunset touched the brown head, 
leaning Madonna-wise over the fair one, 
with a halo of radiance. The impulse of 
divine motherhood, which should stir in 
the heart of every woman, was clasping 
the dying child. 


CHAPTER V. 


By and by Polly Matthews crept up the 
stairs, and Mrs. Drayton bade her return 
with the waiting coachman and bring her 
own physician, and take a message to her 
husband. That the angel of death stood 
so near that she could feel his chill breath 
she did not question, but the pitiful moans 
wrung her heart, and the child must be 
made more comfortable. 

In less than an hour all her wishes had 
been accomplished. Her own physician 
had come, and done what skill might do 
to ease the pain that was so soon to be 
ended, and the tiny frame was resting 
easily in the loving arms, while a contented 
53 


54 


ASCHENBRODEL 


look of fulfilled desire glorified the little 
face that had been so drawn with suffering. 

“You won’t go away?” whispered the 
child feebly. 

“ No, dear. I will stay and hold you 
in my arms till the beautiful angel comes, 
and then I will give you to him, for he is 
going to take you to heaven. Think of it, 
darling, to heaven!” 

“ And my back won’t hurt any more,” 
murmured the pallid lips. “ And there 
will be singing, and it will be beautiful, 
like your house, only Granther can’t bring 
me back any more.” 

“Yes, dear, like my house, only far more 
beautiful.” 

We who are wise in earth’s lore can but 
measure the glories of the Celestial City 
by the beauty of the precious things we 
have seen and handled ; and thus this 



“you WON’T GO AWAY?” WHISPERED THE CHILD, 
FEEBLY— Page 54. 




ASCHENBRODEL 


55 


earthly home was the child’s highest con- 
ception of a heaven which should be all 
happiness. 

These was a wistful look in the brown 
eyes. 

What is it, darling ? Do you want 
something? ” 

“ Will you sing now, please ? It is so 
long to wait.” 

And then — I say it in all reverence — I 
think surely heaven began for little Aschen- 
brodel, even while the spirit was struggling 
to free itself from the grasp of that frail, 
suffering body, for all that her childish 
mind could conceive of delight and rapture 
became hers. She was cradled in tender 
arms; she breathed the perfume of the 
scattered flowers, and a paradise of joy 
became hers when the sweet voice sang 
softly to her. 


56 


ASCHENBRODEL 


By and by a step came softly up the 
stairs, and Mrs. Drayton’s husband stood 
beside her. He had marveled at first at 
his wife’s message, but when he looked 
into the pallid face cradled upon her arm, 
and saw the brown eyes growing clearer 
and clearer as the dawn of heaven’s glory 
came nearer, he understood it all. 

Yet could she bear it? 

And it was just ten years ago that night 
that those two, husband and wife, had sat 
alone together, and watched the immortal 
shake off mortality and wing itself away. 

“ Is it not too much, dearest ? ” he 
asked gently. 

“ It is too much,” she answered, lifting 
a rapt face. “ I am not worthy of this 
blessing, that it should be mine to put this 
little unloved child into the Saviour’s arms 
as tenderly as I did our own ; but since it 


ASCHENBRODEL 


57 


has come to me, the pain is swallowed up 
in the glory of it I must stay till the 
end. I have promised it” 

And so they sat there, the clear, sweet 
voice never faltering in its rippling music, 
only pausing now and then for an instant 
to rest. 

Old Gustave and his wife slept heavily 
below as the hours wore away. The dying 
child was nothing to them, and in their 
dull way they marveled at the folly of 
those strangers who were caring for her. 
That a pearl of surpassing value, a child’s 
soul, had been committed to their keep- 
ing, had never dawned upon their swinish 
natures ; and not having known its worth, 
they knew not its loss. 

The night was very quiet that was to 
herald in the Easter dawn. The stars 
came out, and looked in through the open 


58 


ASCHENBRODEL 


casement upon the little group — the hus- 
band and wife, the dying child, and the 
invisible presence of one who seemed like 
a tender and familiar friend, so gentle had 
his coming been when once before they 
had waited for him. 

Still the sweet voice shattered the silence 
into broken crystals of music, singing on, 
as once before it had sung a little soul 
away. Not the great waves of agonizing 
memory which rushed over her could drown 
the marvelous joy of the thought that for 
the sake of that fair child she could min- 
ister to this little unloved waif, and thus 
what might have been unendurably hard 
ot a heart so filled with longing love, be- 
came possible to her. 

The brown eyes looked up into her face 
with quiet content, and the little hands 
rested in her own, as if they had always 


ASCHENBRODEL 59 

found a home there. Little Aschenbrodel 
was content. What more could heaven 
mean than this rare joy ? 

But as the gray dawn lightened up the 
black edges of the night, and the Easter 
morning sent shafts of radiance athwart the 
eastern sky, the waiting messenger stooped 
over the tiny form. The dawn of heaven’s 
morning was breaking for that brave, 
childish soul, who had borne earth-fetters 
so patiently, and had been content with so 
little of what we cherish here. 

As his shadow fell across the white face 
and the brown eyes looked beyond earth, 
the first ray of the new dawn made a path 
of radiance across the room, falling across 
the empty cot, the little group, and danc- 
ing upon the opposite wall like a glittering 
pathway upon which the passing spirit 
might ascend to the Sun of Righteousness. 


6o 


ASCHENBRODEL 


The singer’s voice faltered, but the en- 
treaty in the eyes, which returned for a 
brief instant to rest upon earthly things, 
bade her sing on, till the last notes should 
fall unheeded upon the ears that would 
soon hear the hosannas of the ransomed 
hosts. 

“ Christ the Lord is risen to-day, 

Alleluia.” 

It had been upon the wings of that tri- 
umphant anthem that the white baby soul 
of her own child had fled from earth. 

“ Christ the Lord is risen to-day, 

Alleluia! 

Sons of men and angels say, 

Alleluia! 

Raise your joys and triumphs high. 

Alleluia! 

Sing ye, heaven and earth, reply. 

Alleluia!” 

A flutter of the little hands, a sigh so 
gentle that it was but the passing of a 


ASCHENBRODBL 


6l 


breath, and the messenger was so close 
that the warm human clasp could feel his 
touch. 


“ Love’s redeeming work is done, 


Alleluia! 

Fought the fight, the victory won, 

Alleluia!” 


But the sound of that last Alleluia was 
blent in the child’s ears with the voice 
of many waters, and the voice of a great 
thunder, and as the released soul sprang 
upward toward its home, it heard the voice 
of harpers harping with their harps, and 
they sung as it were a new song before 
the Throne, the song of the Lamb : 

Great and marvelous are Thy works, 
Lord God Almighty; just and true are 
Thy ways. Thou King of saints. Who 
shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify 
Thy Name? for Thou only art Holy.” 


62 


ASCHENBRODEL 


The glorious Easter sunshine flooded the 
room, and rested like a benediction upon 
the face that had bloomed into such per- 
fect peace when death had touched it. 
And in the great chorus of the redeemed, 
rising night and day before the Throne, 
there was a new strain ; for the little child 
of whom earth was not worthy, since she 
was fashioned in the likeness of the Child 
Christ, and had been endowed with love 
and purity, even while sin and shame had 
laid hold upon her, had escaped from her 
prison-house, and, washed in the blood of 
the Lamb, was arrayed in shining robes 
that she should put off no more forever. 

The watchers sat in silence for a time. 
The hour was too holy for speech, but at 
last, touching the lips with a farewell kiss, 
sealing them with love’s last token, the one 
to whom had been given the joy of minis- 


ASCHENBRODEL 


63 

tering to this little child broke the silence 
with triumphant voice : 

Unto Him that loved us, and washed 
us from our sins in His own blood, and 
made us kings and priests unto God and 
His Father ; to Him be glory and dominion 
forever and ever. Amen.” 



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